Gmail Gets the Much Awaited “Undo” Button

Have you ever faced the situation where you sent an email to a wrong person or maybe vetted out your anger to your boss with a harsh mail? You would have really regretted hitting that “send” button. Google did have the undo option for Gmail, but it was hidden along with several other features in Gmail Labs. Well, now the search engine giant has officially made it a part of the formal options for the web application of the mailing service. Now that’s a major relief!

Enable “Undo Send”

If you have not enabled the option in Gmail Labs already, then you can do it by following these simple steps.

Click the gear in the top right.

Select “Settings”.

Scroll down to “Undo Send” and click Enable.

Set the cancellation period (the amount of time you have to decide if you want to unsend an email. The maximum permissible duration at the moment is 30 seconds.)

Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

If you had already enabled the “undo” feature in the Lab, then it would remain active by default in the upgraded Gmail application.

How Does it Work

Basic Working of an Email Message (image credit: oasis open)

It wont be easy to actually fetch a mail that has been delivered to the recipient, unless you are James Bond of course. On a serious note, the undo feature works by delaying the message for a few seconds (as specified by the user) so that the action may be cancelled if the user intends to do it. The message will be sent once the buffer is over so users need to be quick in making up their mind once they have clicked on the “send“ button. Connection issues, if present, could prevent the feature from working properly and the message might be sent without being held for the stipulated duration.

Impact of the Official “Undo” Feature

With more than 900 million Gmail accountholders worldwide, the official placement of the “undo send” in the email application will definitely bring a lot of relief to users who end up sending messages to the wrong people. Be it on a personal front or for work related communication, the undo feature will surely save people from a lot of embarrassment, messed up situations, and sensitive information being sent to the wrong person.

Google inserted the “undo send” feature last month into an email management application called “Inbox” designed for mobile devices. People around the world have expressed their happiness over the official introduction of the undo feature. At least now, you would be able to avoid (and escape) from some pretty uncomfortable scenarios that are usually created when emailing goes wrong.